


We Could Be Happy

by ThereBeWhalesHere



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: F/F, First Time, Fluff and Smut, Happy Sex, Light Angst, Oral Sex, PWP, Praise Kink, Sex, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-09 22:43:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12898395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThereBeWhalesHere/pseuds/ThereBeWhalesHere
Summary: Michael discovered that it was easier to find those few happy respites when the human embodiment of sunshine was such an integral part of her life. It was also easier to tell herself that the liberal praise she lavished on her friend was for the sake of Tilly’s happiness, and not her own.AKA The one where Tilly has a praise kink, and Michael wants to make Tillyveryhappy.





	We Could Be Happy

Michael had learned dearly, in the months since the start of the war, that happiness needed to be treasured, nurtured. Her own happiness had been hard to come by, after everything. There would be days she could barely think through the heartache, the guilt and shame and the fog that had settled over her and made every breath a new and tedious chore.

But there would also be days that the fog cleared, or at least lessened — moments of clarity and calm that she hadn’t expected to ever feel again — and she threw herself into those moments with a humanlike passion that would have made Sarek cringe. But it was only logical to value a commodity as rare as joy, wasn’t it?

Tilly’s happiness came easily, Michael noticed, and she was grateful for it. Tilly’s smile, her snorting and silly laugh, her casual touches and side-eyed jokes were the only thing that ever sliced through Michael’s fog. And Michael wanted desperately to make Tilly happy.

So she sought ways to do so, to encourage those bright flares that Tilly inspired in her — which wasn’t difficult at all, it turned out. It took only the simplest compliment to make Tilly’s cheeks flush neon pink, to make her duck her head with a little self-deprecating giggle. Michael had begun to tell her “good job,” after their runs, “excellent insight” during their discussions, or even something as commonplace as “you look nice today,” when Tilly had tied her bun an inch higher than usual. She’d seemed more than a little surprised when Michael had noticed.

But Michael  _ noticed _ . She noticed everything about Tilly. They worked together, roomed together, took meals together; and Michael discovered that it was easier to find those few happy respites when the human embodiment of sunshine was such an integral part of her life. It was also easier to tell herself that the liberal praise she lavished on her friend was for the sake of Tilly’s happiness, and not her own.

“You did a remarkable job today,” Michael said, settling on her bed one evening after shift. She pulled the zipper down her front, shedding the heat of her uniform jacket and untucking her undershirt. “Did you notice that Lieutenant Stamets didn’t give you a single correction on your equations?”

Tilly averted her eyes, her smile spreading wide as that endearing flush dappled her cheeks. “Oh, stop,” she said with a modest huff. “That’s only because you looked them over for me first.”

“Briefly,” Michael reminded her with a little smile of her own.

Tilly, her own jacket tossed off to the side, busied herself with her boots, and Michael watched her; the way she bent at the middle, the way her hair, freed now from its bun, fell across her face, hiding her smile. Michael wanted to see Tilly’s smile.

“I admire your passion,” she said, as surprised by the words as she was sure of their sincerity. She was usually so careful about what she said and how she said it, but this time all she’d been thinking about was how to get Tilly to look at her the way Tilly sometimes looked at her.

Tilly’s head snapped up, leaving her shoes halfway-untied, her eyes widening. “You — you what?” she asked, her voice wavering on the edge of a chuckle as though she were ready to laugh with Michael if the compliment proved to be a joke.

Tilly should know her better than to assume Michael’s instinct would be to  _ joke _ . “I admire your passion,” Michael repeated, as if she thought Tilly had just misheard her. “Your dedication to your work. To our work. To everything you do. You’re going to make an excellent captain someday, Tilly.”

In less than the span of a heartbeat, Tilly’s face took on a shade of magenta so bright it clashed almost cartoonishly with her orange hair. Michael watched her pupils widen to the size of saucers, watched her lips part in a little, shallow breath. And she looked beautiful, completely caught off-guard. And when she looked away this time, Michael thought she could almost hear her heartbeat.

“Wow,” Tilly said, the word stuck in her throat. “Um, wow, thank you — I mean, I’ve always wanted to be a capta — ah, you know that, I don’t know why I’m telling you things you already know but I just never thought — I mean you are  _ so _ —” she turned back to Michael here, her hands clenching in her lap. “You’re amazing and, and if  _ you _ think that I — I mean I’ve never been very good at  _ anything _ and—”

Michael didn’t intend to get to her feet, nor did she intend to walk the few paces to Tilly’s bedside. But by the time she realized she was moving she was already standing before her friend, who was staring up at her with a look of surprise and delicate fear. And, too, Michael didn’t intend to raise a hand to Tilly’s overheated cheek, but she did, and she found as Tilly leaned subtly into the touch that it had been an excellent decision, if not a conscious one.

“You’re wonderful,” Michael assured her, holding Tilly’s eyes. Somehow it looked as though she had managed to strike her friend speechless, a rather impressive feat. “And I  _ do _ admire you.”

But those lips — lips that so often moved in rambling phrases and now parted dumbstruck as Tilly stared — still needed some occupation, didn’t they? So Michael leaned down, tilting Tilly’s face up to meet her, giving her a kiss so gentle it felt like they had hardly touched at all. But with that simple contact Michael felt something blooming in her, the petals of her grief-hardened heart unfolding to the first beam of sun she’d seen in months. A breath caught in her lungs and she closed her eyes, feeling Tilly tremble under her touch, light as it was.

And then Tilly’s hands were in Michael’s hair, tugging her in with a force that made Michael gasp. They met with a clash of lips and teeth, Tilly tilting her head to force herself closer, whimpering as Michael licked into her mouth with her own truncated whine, her heart pounding so hard against her ribs it hurt.

Michael moved on instinct, her other hand coming to Tilly’s face and holding her in place, something singing in her — something like happiness but brighter and warmer and  _ faster, _ and in a moment she found her knees on the mattress, twisting Tilly back onto the pillows and laying over her as if this had been her intent all along. But it hadn’t been, had it? She just wanted to make Tilly happy. All she wanted was to make Tilly happy.

A leg came up to wrap around her, pulling her flush against Tilly’s body, and Michael gasped at the sudden movement, breaking the kiss and feeling the heat of Tilly’s breath on her spit-slick lips. When she managed to crack open her eyes, Tilly was staring at her with her own look of surprise.

“Oh my  _ god _ ,” Tilly whispered, and Michael nearly found herself laughing, a giddy hum of joy ripping through her as she pushed forward, hips rolling against Tilly’s as she captured Tilly’s lips once again. They moved together for a few moments, Tilly lifting herself against Michael’s body as though trying to line up every curve, and Michael found herself pulling off of Tilly’s lips to lay worshipful kisses along her jaw, her throat. Her hand gravitated to Tilly’s chest, palming her breast through the thin fabric of her shirt and feeling the shuddering hitch of breath.

“You’re beautiful,” Michael whispered reverently against Tilly’s flushed skin, heart pounding at Tilly’s responding full-body shudder. Now more than ever she wanted to shower Tilly with praise, with assurance, with those simple words that never failed to make her smile. “Beautiful,” she repeated, nipping gently at the column of Tilly’s neck.

Tilly’s hands moved down Michael’s back, hiking up her undershirt and finding bare skin to stroke, and Michael felt herself tingling at the touch as Tilly buried her nose in Michael’s hair. “I didn’t — didn’t think you wanted me,” Tilly said, her voice so quiet Michael barely heard over the pounding of her own heartbeat.

“I want you,” Michael said, punctuating the assertion with a harder bite to Tilly’s neck that had her whimpering. Some voice in the back of her mind told her she should be embarrassed at the darkness of her own tone. But she wasn’t listening to that voice right now. Instead, she was listening to Tilly’s rapid breath, and the instinct within her that told her to move. She dragged her hand from Tilly’s chest downward, tugging up her shirt. Then, finally, she popped the button of Tilly’s trousers and slipped her hand beneath her waistband, fingertips grazing a mound of wiry hair. She pulled away just enough to meet Tilly’s darkened eyes.

“Is this alright?” she asked, her breath frozen in her throat in anticipation of the answer.

Tilly let out an inelegant snort of a laugh — the kind of laugh that made Michael so happy she thought she could drown in the feeling. “This is only the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me,” Tilly said with a tease in her tone, and Michael felt herself smiling, leaning down to take those grinning pink lips in a kiss.

Tilly lifted herself into it with arms around Michael’s neck, humming into Michael’s mouth, and Michael slipped her hand lower, fingers parting Tilly’s warm folds. With a shuddering breath of her own, she stroked up and down Tilly’s slit, pressing between her lips to find her already wet and slick.

Gasping against Michael’s lips, Tilly bucked into the light touch, and Michael felt herself shudder at the realization of Tilly’s arousal, nipping at Tilly’s lips as she used two gentle fingers to slowly circle Tilly’s clit.

Pulling back within the hold of Tilly’s arms, she found her eyes tracing the lines of those parted lips, falling to Tilly’s chest that huffed with shallow breaths. But Michael wasn’t content with this sight alone, with the slight stretch of exposed belly. She wanted to  _ see _ her. So, retracting her touch, she rose away to a whimper of protest.

“Don’t stop,” Tilly said, just on the edge of begging, but Michael smiled, bringing her hands to the waistband of Tilly’s slacks.

“I just want to get these off,” she said, and Tilly wilted with apparent relief.

“You could've said,” she admonished with a little laugh, lifting her hips. Michael helped her pull the slacks down her thighs, tugging them down to her ankles and fumbling just slightly with the boots. Tilly laughed again as Michael impatiently tossed the lot to the floor and finally returned her eyes to the woman laid out in front of her.

Bare from the waist down, Tilly was all pale curves and valleys, the rolling hills of her body like a Renaissance painting. With her legs parted, Tilly was stroking at her patch of dark red hair, seemingly stopping herself from dipping into the shining slick at her center. Her lips were drawn between her teeth as she suppressed a smile, her eyes wide and waiting. Something hot and possessive went speeding through Michael’s veins at the sight. After a moment, Tilly brought her hands self-consciously to her belly. “You’re— you’re staring,” she accused, and Michael realized that she had been.

“You’re stunning,” she retorted, leaning forward and shoving the hem of Tilly’s shirt up, exposing her breasts and the enticing blush that crept down her collar and chest. Tilly opened her mouth in what may have been the prelude to words, but Michael sank down before she could speak, taking one pert nipple between her lips.

Tilly’s hand flew up to her hair and gripped tight. “You — ah,  _ Michael _ ,” Tilly complained, “you have to stop saying things like that.”

Michael rolled her tongue around Tilly’s nipple, sucking briefly before pulling off. “Like what?” she asked, looking up to Tilly’s eyes as her hands traced Tilly’s sides, running down her body with a thrill of exploration, coming to grip Tilly’s thighs to push them farther apart.

Tilly complied with the touch, her head falling back onto the pillow. “You  _ know _ ,” she said, and Michael brought her hand back to where it had begun, fingers once again delving into the wet folds of Tilly’s lips. Tilly gasped, the hand in Michael’s hair tightening as Michael began again to lap languidly at Tilly’s nipple. “You — you don’t know what you do to me when you say— ah! When you  _ say those things _ .” Michael grazed her teeth against the nipple between her lips and pulled back, rising up to her knees.

“You’re stunning?” she asked, circling a fingertip around Tilly’s opening, a promise in the pressure. “You’re wonderful? Beautiful?”

Just as Tilly opened her mouth to respond, Michael slipped a finger easily inside her and curled it, biting back her own reaction to the feeling, the velvet heat and the automatic tensing of Tilly’s muscles. Tilly tossed her head back, spine arching.

“ _ Yes _ ,” she groaned out, and Michael didn’t know if it was in answer to her question, or a reaction to that finger buried deep inside her, now stroking gentle circles.

“I fail to see why I should stop being truthful. You are  _ beautiful _ ,” Michael said slipping a second finger in alongside the first, pushing in gently as Tilly stretched around her. She brought her other hand to Tilly’s mound, massaging with the heel of her palm as she moved in and out, in and out with gently crooked fingers. Michael’s underwear was already wet, her tenuous control already overwhelmed by the sight of Tilly spread out for her and the feeling of Tilly’s pussy around her fingers, but she tried to push aside her own selfish arousal.

“But I’m — I’m not,” Tilly managed to say, eyes screwed shut, kneading her breasts with trembling fingers. “I’m not any of those things, I’m not—” Michael wanted to get her mouth on her, sink down and lick inside her, but she needed her mouth to speak, to tell Tilly in no uncertain terms how beautiful she was, how important and singular she was and how desperately Michael wanted her. So she busied her hands, two fingers curling and stroking and opening Tilly up, and two more rubbing warm, wet circles around Tilly’s clit.

“Tilly, you — you make me  _ feel _ ,” Michael said, unsure where the words were coming from, only that they were coming, and they felt vulnerable and bare, but she couldn’t be ashamed of them. They were true. “And you make me feel  _ incredible _ . I want — I want to make you feel incredible, too.”

With a tiny, breathy groan, Tilly opened her heavy eyes to meet Michael’s, and Michael felt absorbed in her, her own breath shallow as she picked up the pace, rolling Tilly’s clit between her circling fingertips.

“I want to make you happy, Tilly,” she whispered, choked on an emotion she couldn’t name, but it rose within her like sunrise when Tilly whined, rolling her hips hard into Michael's touch. “I want to make you so happy.”

Tilly was leaking hot and wet over Michael’s hand, letting out little gasps and truncated moans, looking at Michael as if she wanted to speak but couldn’t. “Michael,” she finally managed, the two syllables trembling and strained. She dragged her hand from her breast and down, down, down, her fingers forming a V over her own pussy, spreading herself to Michael's touch. “ _ Please _ .”

Michael knew what she wanted, knew that the very thing that could make Tilly happiest was exactly what Michael wanted, too. Perhaps that had always been the case.

So she shuffled backwards to give herself room, pulling out to a hitch of Tilly’s breath, a wavering, quiet cry at the sudden loss of pressure. Her wet fingers found Tilly’s soft and pliant thighs, squeezing them tight.

Michael didn’t leave Tilly wanting long. Instead, she lowered her lips to Tilly’s clit, kissing it as she had kissed Tilly’s mouth — a gentle graze of lips and just the barest tip of her tongue. Tilly’s hips lifted off the bed as she groaned, and Micahel adjusted to the movement, palming Tilly’s ample ass and holding her in place. Emboldened, she licked hungrily between Tilly’s folds, circled her center with the tip of her tongue, collecting some of that tangy-sweet taste and licking a hard line upward, spreading it hot and wet over Tilly’s clit.

“Oh—” Tilly cried, and Michael looked up to her as she licked under Tilly’s hood, her own cunt pulsing with untouched arousal at the sight of her.

Michael flicked her tongue faster, head cloudy, her objective eclipsing everything but Tilly’s cries, the gasping breaths and stuttering “fuck”s and the satisfied groans when Michael’s tongue rolled against her. As Tilly’s whole body tensed, the muscles of her ass clenching tight under Michael’s grip, Michael fastened her lips around that sensitive nub and sucked, dragging her tongue along the tip.

Tilly let out a wail that seemed to echo in Michael's ears, her hand fisting in Michael’s curls as she bucked up hard and wet against Michael’s chin. Her body jerked through her orgasm, seizing taut, her legs trembling and Michael faithfully licking her through it, each brush of her tongue making Tilly curse. “ _ Fuck _ ,” Tilly shouted, all but the ‘f’ lost in a gasp. “Fuck, god, fuck,  _ fuck _ .”

And finally that hand in Michael’s hair was tugging her back, and Tilly was babbling “St — stop, oh, stop, oh god,” even as she shoved herself farther down the bed as if seeking more. Michael couldn’t resist one more long lick from slit to clit, pulling a final, overstimulated groan from Tilly’s lips.

As Michael finally pulled away and Tilly collapsed bodily onto the bed, Michael saw the divots of red tooth-marks in Tilly’s lips from where she’d bitten down. All she wanted was to kiss the iron blood from Tilly’s mouth, but Tilly closed her legs and rolled to the side before Michael had the chance. She buried her face in the pillow, and her shoulders— her shoulders started shaking.

Michael ran a hand up and down Tilly’s thigh, regaining her own breath and wiping her chin on her sleeve. “Tilly?” she asked, a gentle concern in her voice. But when Tilly tilted her head toward Michael, she was smiling something stupefied and disbelieving. She wasn’t crying; she was  _ laughing _ .

“ _ Wow _ ,” Tilly said, a giggle tickling her voice. “Holy fucking shit, that was —  _ wow _ .”

Michael’s concern melted away, replaced with a warm feeling that seemed to fill her chest like hot air rising when Tilly met her eyes under a curtain of curly hair. They stared smiling at each other for a moment before Tilly rolled onto her back once more, opening her limp arms. Michael picked up on the gesture and sank forward, wrapped her arms around Tilly’s back and squeezed, finding her lips once again. Tilly’s hand came to cup her cheek, her legs winding around Michael’s back as they rolled slowly against each other.

They kissed lazily for a few moments, but when they pulled away Tilly met her eyes with a clear question in her expression, fingers tracing the waistband of Michael’s trousers. “May I?” she asked sweetly.

A whip crack of arousal ricocheted through Michael’s nerves at the thought of Tilly’s fingers inside of her, Tilly’s mouth on her own clit, Tilly’s lips grazing her skin, Tilly, Tilly —

“You don’t have to,” Michael said gently, pulling back just enough to discourage Tilly’s touch. “I just ... wanted to make you happy.” Tilly’s smile spread wide and she giggled again, finding Michael’s hips and rubbing circles on them with her thumbs.

“ _ You  _ make me happy,” she said, so genuine and warm it made Michael’s heart hitch. “I wouldn’t mind returning the favor.”

Michael swallowed, ducking her head as her own cheeks grew hot. She pressed tentatively forward once more, granting silent permission. “You do,” Michael heard herself whisper.

Tilly’s smile turned soft and she pulled Michael back in for a kiss, using the gentle pressure of her body to roll them over.

And soon Michael was laid out under Tilly with those thick thighs holding her in place, watching Tilly pull the shirt over her wreath of hair, a winning smile on her face. She was bare and shining and beautiful. And happy.

And looking at her, feeling her pleasant weight and those warm hands beginning their exploration up Michael’s stomach, Michael was happy, too. The fog was clearing, and for the first time in a long time she thought she could see the promise of sunshine.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Woo! First time posting f/f smut, if you can believe it. I just couldn't resist with these two. I'm completely smitten by their relationship and extra smitten by Tilly herself.
> 
> My wife's response to this fic was "I love it. Needs more butts."  
> Me: "Okay, I'll put in more butts next time."  
> Her: "NEXT TIME? Butts 24/7!"
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!! I hope you enjoyed it!! Please come [say hi on Tumblr](http://onedamnminuteadmiral.tumblr.com/) if you want!


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